Page 273 - 5 Persian Trade rep BUSHIRE I_Neat

REPORT
ON THE

TRADE OF THE CONSULAR DISTRICT OE
BUS HIRE

lor the Persian Fiscal Year March 22nd 1910 to March 21st 1911.

INTRODUCTION. the melting of the snows in the mountains and could
be put to more extended purposes of irrigation than at
present.
Geographical.
Eushirc is situated at the northern end of a tor- Historical.
prio-sh.ipod promontory about 12 miles long by 4 According to Arrian, when Nearchus sailed up the
^••3 broad in the widest part, separated fro:n the Gulf, the peninsula of Bu«diirc was known a3 Mcsara-
ir. trior by a great sandy plain about 20 miles wide Lria : its Persian name has been thought to have been
i-rmcd Mashileh ; it lies 190 miles North by East of derived as a contraction of Bckht-i-Ardashir, and
M.namab in the Bahrain Islands, 170 miles East by under the Zoroastrian dynasties a large town must
x ~tb of Kuwait on the coast of Arabia, and 150 have existed on the peninsula. The earliest mention
rD.*s East South-East of the mouth of the Shat-el- of the town under its present name is found in tho
Arsb, t.e.. the estuary of the Tigris and oth*r rivers. 13th century A.D.: but as a trading centre its rise
I* forms the headquarters of the Persian province uT dates from 1750 only. In 1703 the East India
i-jf Gulf Ports, the nominal jurisdiction of which Company established a Residency for the purposes of
!r*:nds, with the exception of the town of Diiarn, 85 trade, especially the sale of woollens for northern
-AVs to the north, and a few surrounding square Persia, and British commercial interests have been
Jes, from the middle of the Kuh-i-Bang Mountains, prominent ever since. The town was captured in tho
-ut 55 miles north of Bushire, to the borders of Anglo-Persian war of 1856, and was held by the
Itngistan about 12 miles south of Bushire town. The British until after the conclusion of peace.
client of the province in this part is not more than 15
riles inland, though about 32 miles behind the pen- Inhabitants.
’.rsula itself. But all districts outside the peninsula The Persian. Government only assumed effective
arc- administered by local chiefs themselves, indopend* control of Bu-hire in the middle of the nineteenth
f-'.ly of the Government Glacial*. The Lingah dis- century, up till when the town had more of an Arab
trirt, under a Deputy-Govcnor subordinate to Bash­ character, and to a large extent the population
ir*. is about 15 miles in l'.ngth west to east, and its of Bushire and the surroundings is stifl to-day more
Ucadth behind Lingah town about 25 miles. The Arab in blood than Persian. The trading section of
town of Bandar Abbas is entirely, and the neigh­ the population has been reinforced by Persian set­
bouring district of Shcmil and Mir.ab arc also partly, tlers from Behbcban, Kazcrun, Debdasbtand Shiraz :
tnder the jurisdiction of Governorship of the Gulf and the fishing and labouring classes from tribesmen
forts, which is further responsible for the various from the vicinity, largely Tangistan. Besides com­
nnall ports between Minab and Bushire, and for cer- merce, the inhabitants are cultivators, fishermen,
Uin of the Persian islands in the Gulf. labourers, and coolies. As ccoties they are in large
The principal rivers that are of importance to the demand for work in Basrah and on the Tigris on ac­
r-'ograpbical district surrounding Bushire are the count of superior stamina and energy to local Arabs.
Kuclhilleh, flowing into the sea about 15 miles north of There is also a considerable number of Persian
Bushire, and formed by the junction of the Shapur inhabitants. European inhabitants are between 30
*itb the Daliki river about 30 miles inland: and se­ and 40 in number.
condly, the Mund river, the ancient Sitagon, which The garrison of the town and district of Bushire
yppears near Shiraz as the Qara Aghaj, and flows out consist of about 200 Persian “sarbazes ” (soldiers)
h*to the Khor-i-Ziaret in Dashti 05 miles couth of and about 20 artillery men. The local shipping—all :
Bushire. The firsts named river regularly floods after sailing craft—may be estimated at 60 lighters of 10 ■
1215 F. D.